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The Truth About Pit Bulls: Part 3

Today: A continuation of our discussion about Pit Bulls. If you missed Part 1 and Part 2, check out the previous posts before rejoining us here.

If Pit Bulls have been bred for generations not to bite people, why is it that we seem to hear so many gruesome accounts of Pit Bull attacks? One reason is that stories about aggressive Pit Bulls are more sensational than stories about equally aggressive dogs from a breed with a more benign reputation. The media is far more likely to report on a problem Pit Bull than a problem Golden Retriever. Also, greater public awareness of Pit Bulls has increased the likelihood that any muscular, short-coated dog with a large head will be identified as a Pit Bull, particularly if it has been involved in an attack.

But claims of media bias cannot be used to explain away the times when Pit Bulls have truly bitten, sometimes with tragic consequences. The fact that dogs described as Pit Bulls are responsible for more than their fair share of human bites (particularly those that result in the worst injuries) can’t be ignored.1,2,3 What has gone wrong in these instances?

In some cases, breeders need to take responsibility for producing vicious dogs. Conscientious breeders carefully select only the best individuals for use in their programs and routinely produce wonderful animals. But, if someone instead seeks out Pit Bulls that act aggressively towards people and mates them to each other or to any other aggressive dog, years of proper breeding can be undone in just a generation or two.

Many times, owners are to blame. Pit Bulls are extremely trainable and want nothing more than to please their owners. Unfortunately, if an immoral person wants their Pit Bull to be aggressive towards people and he or she rewards this behavior, the dog is likely to act in the way that his owner has intended. Also, dogs that have been neglected, abused or poorly socialized are more likely to be aggressive. If a Pit Bull has had only unpleasant dealings with people or has no experience with strangers, it should not come as too great of a surprise when he lashes out.

Studies published in 2009 and 2012 confirm that owners of dog breeds known for being “vicious” (including Pit Bulls) have higher incidences of criminal thinking and behavior, primary psychopathy, and antisocial tendencies in comparison to other dog owners.4,5 It seems obvious that certain breeds of dogs attract certain types of people, and if those owners act in aggressive ways it shouldn’t be too surprising that they train their dogs to behave in a similar manner.

Finally, sometimes the process of reproduction, development, and aging goes astray. In a particular dog, genes may combine in just the wrong way producing an individual that is very different from what is normal. Although the majority of Pit Bulls are born gentle and trustworthy, a specific individual may not be. Diseases or injuries that cause pain or adversely affect brain function may also be responsible for turning a good dog, regardless of its breed, into a potential threat.

Comments 7

I can suggest two additional reason that dogs identified as "Pit Bulls" may be involved in more than their share of dangerous bites and attacks.

First of course is that they are usually fairly large athletic dogs.

Secondly is this: It is my understanding that the dogs actually bred for dog fighting (reprehensible as that is) were selected for extreme focus and "gameness" such that handlers could grab the fighting dogs and pull them apart and the dogs would not turn on the handler. This would mean that a very complex set of behaviors was being selected for in a breeding program. Also these dogs were selected for specific aggression focus on other dogs, not humans.

However a cross to a "Pit Bull" breed tends to produce a broad headed short coated and muscular dog so that even cross breds still have the "Pit Bull" look. (Short coat is dominant to most other canine coat types and the broad head seems to come through in interbreed crosses). But once strong selection is removed the genetic basis of the complex set of behaviors where aggression and focus are combined for fighting and non-aggression to humans is no longer preserved and dogs with unpredictable behaviors can appear.

According to the behaviorists who taught the course on canid behavior I took at Wolf Park (http://wolfpark.org/) this is what happens when people breed Wolf hybrids to be pets. Even several generations down the animals will display unpredictable mixtures of wolf and dog behaviors which can result in some individuals being very dangerous as pets.

Despite people thinking that purpose bred dogs are being bred primarily for aspects of appearance, a great deal of what goes into breeding purpose bred dogs by any decent breeder is breeding for a predictable set of behaviors so that the dogs are fitted to their purpose. Breeding for dogs to be safe pets is a major purpose as much as breeding for a particular physical look.

Having had a boarding kennel since 1982 I have seen a large collection of dogs who more or less have failed as pets, yet their owners keep them with difficulty. Notable examples that come to mind include a Chesapeake Bay Retriever who was a large powerful dog with fear triggered aggression. When I asked the owner how he came to get this dog he told me that his close friend had two Chessies, a calm rational male that was an excellent hunting dog, and a small timid and reactive female. The assumption when breeding them was that the desirable personality of the male would prevail in the pups. However there is actually a published study on temperament inheritance in dogs and the fearful, reactive trait is a dominant gene (called Dominant Shyness).

The book is Genetics and the Social Behaviour of the Dog
by John Paul Scott, John L. Fuller and anyone involved in breeding dogs should read it.

A friend has 2 pit's. One is a larger breed the other is smaller.
Both where rescued.

My cat was up in my room & the larger dog got by me w/ his girl.
A few seconds later we hear crying & whimpering.
I ran up stairs to find this so called" dangerous breed" on his back & my 13 yr. old cat in the hall & would not let him out of my room.
I had to remove my cat, I was scratched by my own cat..

When he ran out of my room down the stairs to my deck out the door & to my friends home We had found he was "bitch slapped by my cat.
Poor 95 lb. muscle dog had scratches on his face.

Now tell me how nasty the breed is? Not true He could have eatin him up with out a second though.
A few yrs. back it was the rottie that got the bad rap.
Go figure?

Hi Jenn,
Excellent series, thank you. Expanding on your point “The fact that dogs described as Pit Bulls are responsible for more than their fair share of human bites (particularly those that result in the worst injuries) can’t be ignored.1,2,3 “
I find it interesting that you did not mention or expand upon “described as Pit Bulls”. WHO exactly is describing them and regardless of who, it has been scientifically documented many times that even doctors and professional who are in the animal business, mislabel “Pit Bulls” more than 70% of the time!
http://article.sapub.org/10.5923.j.sociology.20130302.02.htmlhttp://www.funpawcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Rethinking+Pit+Bulls.pdf
http://www.funpawcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Comparison-of-Visual-and-DNA-Breed-Identification-of-Dogs-and-Inter-Observer-Reliability.pdf
That one statistic alone could have made your 3 part series a1 part series and squashed any intelligent argument for BSL or discrimination :)

I have a free roam boarding facility, and though the sweetest most gentle dog in the world has been a purebred pit bull female, I also had a pair of pit bulls that I had to call and ask to be removed as soon as I tried to move them to a different enclosure. The dogs were dropped off by the mother and grandmother of the female owner who was in the hospital. They came back but were too afraid to go into the pen to get the dogs. They called another relative to come get them.

I understand why people love them. They can be personable, happy, loving, clownish, adorable dogs. I have a soft spot for them, and I really like the mixes too. On the other hand some of them end up killing people in horrible ways. In my city a grandfather was killed by his grandson's pit bull while watering the garden. The grandfather had been around the dog since he was a puppy. A well-known artist in California, an older woman who was staying at a motel with her son and his two pit bulls, was killed by them in the room while her son was out. An elderly kennel owner was killed by a pit bull that he was taking care of for someone temporarily.

There are videos on Youtube of people walking down city streets when a pit bull comes out of nowhere to attack a child or an adult, and the dogs are fiercely focused on their inexplicable task.

Neither advocacy side is 100% true. They aren't all horrible killing machines and they aren't all adorable, completely safe family pets. The truth is more complex than that.